1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates, in general, to use of search engines to search online content and return search results along with advertising targeted to the searching party, and, more particularly, to computer-based methods for providing advertising based on geographical information to provide an alternative to existing Internet Protocol (IP) or user input-based geotargeting of online, Internet, or web advertising content.
2. Relevant Background
Search engine marketing (SEM) is a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites and advertising content by increasing visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs). SEM has grown increasingly important as the number of Internet users has rapidly increased, with many customers turning to the Internet as their primary source for finding service providers (e.g., to find a good restaurant, to find a doctor, to locate a hotel, and so on). In a SERP, the search engine provider typically will present a listing of websites ranked in the order of relevance to a set of search terms, with relevance being determined by the search engine's algorithms. Search engine providers have built a business model to finance their services that includes providing pay per click programs and paid search opportunities, and, as a result, most SERPs now include paid advertisements at the top of the page and along one or both sides (as well as pop up advertisements in some cases).
SEM methods are rapidly being developed to facilitate service providers to better utilize the Internet and business models of search engine providers. SEM methods may include search engine optimization (SEO) and paid placement/inclusion. SEO is the process of modifying the structure and content of a website such that search engines can readily understand and find the website during a search of website content databases. For example, SEO may include choosing keyword phrases (such as phrases that are 2 to 4 words long) and repeating these throughout the content of the page and other locations (such as in the title, meta tags, headlines, text links, and so on). Use of keyword phrases often helps to target particular searchers (e.g., customers). SEO is used to enhance a search engine ranking of websites, and the ranking is intended to indicate which websites have content that is more highly relevant relative to other websites based on search terms entered by a search engine user in the search engine's query or search box. Search engine rankings are important because the websites returned in a SERP are provided in the ranked order with the most relevant or highest ranked sites listed first, and most Internet searchers only visit the most highly ranked sites.
SEM methods also include determining how best to spend money on pay per click or paid inclusion advertising provided by search engine providers. Participating in an advertisement offering by a search engine provider can be expensive. Some service providers pay relatively large amounts to appear or be presented on numerous SERPs because they bid large amounts during keyword bidding offered by the search engine provider (e.g., a dollar amount that an advertiser is willing to pay to display an ad relative to the competition). For example, a search engine provider may determine which websites or website advertisements to present in a SERP by using the query or search terms and comparing these to keywords provided or purchased by the advertisers. Typically, the more general the keyword (i.e., the more likely it is used in a search) the higher the cost in a keyword bid. However, this may result in a site getting many visitors and generating a higher advertising cost without attracting the kind of visitors that result in sales due to poor targeting of the ads to the viewers/customers. Numerous visitors may be desirable for a general, national brand advertising campaign (such as beverage or automobile advertising campaign), but it is not typically acceptable with many advertisers carefully tracking conversion of traffic to queries/sales. Since advertising spending is limited for most service providers, advertisers are continually searching for ways to better target their ads and have them returned on SERPs with a higher likelihood of conversion to a sale.
In some cases, the search engine may utilize a management system that controls selection and placement of sponsored links or web advertising based on other information than a keyword search such as geographical location. For example, the advertisement management system may use geotargeting, which generally has involved the determining of the geolocation or physical location of a website visitor or individual presenting a query to a search engine. When a search engine used geotargeting for its advertising selection and/or ranking, the location of the searcher or user is utilized to select which advertisements or advertising content should be presented on the SERP rather than simply keyword searching on phrases or terms provided by the advertiser (e.g., keywords bid on by the advertisers typically related to their goods or services). For example, a search engine provider may use geotargeting to try to present pay per click advertisements only to users who live in locations selected by the advertiser, e.g., only display an ad for a California sports team when the searcher is located in California or the like.
Unfortunately, geotargeting is, often not effective in accurately targeting customers via search engine result pages (SERPs), especially in targeting customers of businesses or service providers with a relatively small or localized service area. Geotargeting of advertising may be provided by geo-intelligence embedded or running on the serving platform or by processing a user profile or a user-provided search with geographic terms. When carried out by an ad serving platform, geotargeting is generally limited to its embedded geo-intelligence, and most geotargeting algorithms determine a searcher's location based on an Internet Protocol (IP) address. IP-based geomarketing seeks to convert a computer's IP address into a real world location. In theory, such a location technique seems effective and valuable, with the ad server assuming the user is located in a geographic location associated with the IP address of the submitted query or search request to the search engine. In practice, the use of IP addresses to identify actual location provides a rough estimate such as within a state or region, but not the actual location of the user. IP geomarketing involves first using an automated discovery of the user's geolocation information based on IP addresses based on traceroute, pings, and a combination of other advanced tools. It is dependent upon a pre-analysis of the entire IP address space, which is a huge task as there are more than 4 billion possible IP addresses and IP addresses are constantly being assigned, allocated, reallocated, moved, and changed due to routers being moved, enterprises being assigned IP addresses, networks being built/changed, and use of load balancing equipment and proxy servers by Internet service providers to distribute traffic across their network(s). As a result, the locations determined based on IP addresses may only be accurate on a regional level or on city-based level. In other cases, the use of IP addresses simply results in bad location information, such as resulted in past experiences where an Internet service provider indicated all of their nationwide subscribers had IP addresses in a single city (e.g., use of load balancers and proxy servers made all packets appear that they came from a location other than the user's/searcher's actual location). In either case, IP geotargeting does not provide the accuracy or reliability that is needed to provide effective targeting of advertising based on geographic location. Additionally, the location that is being determined is the location of the user, but the query or search input by the user often is for a differing location, such as when planning a vacation or trip, a dinner in another city, and so on.
In addition to a website or search engine determining a user's location based on IP address lookup, users may directly provide information about their location. For example, user's may provide a user profile to a website or to a search engine as part of establishing an account. Because user profiles are predetermined, they require no additional effort from the user when they perform an online search. However, when a user or searcher is searching outside the area or location contained in their user profile, the advertising provided with their search results will typically be inappropriate (e.g., advertise restaurants in New York City based on the user profile when the searcher is planning a trip to Los Angeles). The majority of the time searchers are searching outside their profile-defined geographic area. In these cases, the burden is placed on the searcher to define the geographic proximity of their search, and this creates another set of problems for the ad management tools of search engines (and website providers). Formal geographical terms such as cities, addresses, postal codes, and so on may be properly recognized by a search engine, but searchers often will not know this information or incorrectly enter it as part of their searches. In other cases, informal geographical terms such as schools, parks, neighborhoods, key landmarks, and so on are only recognized in keyword searching methods and are not related spatially or associated to a particular geographic location or area. For example, a search attempting to find a coffee shop in the Tribeca neighborhood of Manhattan may return results and/or advertising for the Tribeca Coffee Shop in Krakow, Poland or in Durban, South Africa while failing to target advertisements for this neighborhood toward the searcher.
Hence, while IP-based geotargeting can be effective at a national, state, and, sometimes, city level, this form of geomarketing fails to provide the granularity required to support truly local ad targeting. User profile-based geotargeting is useful if the searcher is limiting their queries to locations and service providers within their profile-defined location or area, but this form of geomarketing fails once the user begins searching other geographic areas and also often fails to provide a desired reliability (e.g., because it relies on a user to define their geographic location in their profile) and/or granularity (e.g., may only identify a city or state location). There is an ongoing need for improved methods and systems for targeting online advertisement toward users of the Internet (e.g., to users of search engines that return advertisements selected based on the geographical information or users that search while visiting another website that may return results along with advertisements).